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“DON’T TRY AND do a garden overnight. Try to go down to your local garden centre and buy a few plants, enjoy those plants, and think of them as your babies.”
That’s the advice for budding domestic gardeners from Billy Alexander of Kells Bay House and Gardens in Co Kerry.
He should know. Alexander is a seasoned exhibitor at the Chelsea Flower Show who has won three gold medals at the prestigious annual event.
He doesn’t have a garden entered this year though and feels a bit like he’s “missing the action”.
“I’ve been doing it every two years for 10 years now, and the second you walk out of Chelsea at the end of the show, you’re thinking about the potential for the next one. How can I do better, how can I tweak it?,” he says.
Alexander works mainly with ferns, “tree ferns, exotic ferns, and indigenous ferns,” he explains, adding that you need a full two-year cycle to have the gardens looking their best.
“First of all, you start with plant material, and then you start thinking about design and how can I change it and make it better.”
Last year Alexander won the third of his gold medals, when he also took home the President’s Award. This year he has no garden at the flower show but he has a president nonetheless.
Alexander is here to meet President Catherine Connolly, who is attending the event to begin the second day of her three-day UK visit.
The Chelsea Flower Show is a vast expanse of shrubbery, design and footfall that takes over the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea for five days in May each year.
There’s plenty to see, buy and imbibe but a light rain and cloud cover that has greeted the start of the show has delayed the attendees getting on the Pimm’s too early.
A buzz among the Irish contingent greets’s Connolly arrival but the place itself is filling up anyway so it doesn’t cause too much of a stir.
There were some confused locals who knew something was up due to the fuss, but a BBC broadcast happening nearby probably caused more disruption.
Indeed, the fantastically named Keith Weed, president of the Royal Horticultural Society, could only give Connolly about a 90-second welcome as he was “going live on the BBC in two minutes”.
Even though this is the first public day of the event, the medals for the various winning gardens were handed out in the dead of night as the judges made their decisions.
In a happy coincidence, the garden that Connolly was due to visit first was the recipient of a coveted gold medal overnight.
Connolly was pencilled in to visit Trussell’s Together Garden. It’s a garden of crossing paths and timber frames that The Journal was told has straw foxglove and horned spurge among its foliage.
The garden was designed by Rob Hardy in collaboration with The Trussell Trust, a charity that works with about 1,400 food banks across the UK.
After being admired by 145,000 green fingered pilgrims at the flower show this week, this garden will then be moved to the Trussell food bank in Strabane, Co Tyrone.
Keeping with the Irish theme, there is also some Irish stone as part of the garden’s design.
Rachel Lees, the project manager of Trussell Together Garden, explains what it’s all about.
“It’s an incredible space where someone facing hunger and hardship can have a conversation with a volunteer, get the support that they need, find out what’s going on for them, and hopefully not need to use a food bank in the future, because they’re able to access the support that they need,” she says.
Connolly moves through the garden and speaks to the Trussell’s team about their work and then on to the next of the five other gardens as part of her itinerary.
There’s a garden supported by Parkinson’s UK and another wonderful title in the form The Lady Garden Foundation.
The Lady Garden Foundation raises awareness about gynaecological cancers across the UK and its exhibition at the flower show is titled ‘Silent No More’.
The garden features 21 clipped teucrium plants to represent the 21 women who die every day from the five gynaecological cancers.
As she moves through the female-focused space, one Irish woman attending the flower show tells The Journal that Connolly “is a strong woman, and maybe the world needs more strong women”.
Maria O’Neill and her husband Seán O’Neill from Clontarf in Dublin are over for the flower show and clocked on the flight over that Connolly was on board too.
Six months into her presidency, do they think she’s going a good job?
“It’s clear she has her own thoughts,” Maria says, “I hope she grows into it, we need someone energised in that role.”
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